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Manuscript External Review Panels
By Jon T. Hoffman
Article published on: April 1, 2024 in the Army History Spring 2024 issue
Read Time: < 5 mins
In mid-December, we held external review panels on back-to-back days. The first session looked at Dr. Nicholas J. Schlosser’s manuscript covering the surge in Iraq from January 2007 through December 2008. Because much of his source material is still awaiting declassification, we had to revert to the old method of having the group meet in person at Fort McNair rather than conducting the session online. The panel members also had have security clearances, which limited our ability to draw from our usual pool of civilian academics, though regardless there are not many university professors who have a depth of expertise in the history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, we assembled a highly qualified panel.
Mr. Dale Andrade is a former longtime historian with the Center of Military History (CMH) and is now the deputy director of the Joint History Office. His published works include Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d Infantry Division and Task Force Marne in Iraq, 2007–2008 (CMH, 2010). Lt. Col. Wilson C. Blythe Jr. is currently with the Joint History Office following service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a PhD in history and helped write the chief of staff of the Army’s Operation Iraqi Freedom study. Dr. Gian P. Gentile is the associate director of the RAND Arroyo Center and a retired U.S. Army colonel. His service included two combat tours in Iraq, the second as a cavalry squadron commander in Baghdad in 2006, and he also was the director of the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Dr. Seth Givens is a historian with the Marine Corps History Division and is working on a volume covering the U.S. Marines in western Iraq, 2004–2010. Although he was not able to participate in the panel, Col. Francis J. Park reviewed the manuscript. He is the director of the Army War College’s Basic Strategic Art Program and was part of the chief of staff of the Army’s study group that produced Modern War in an Ancient Land: The U.S. Army in Afghanistan, 2001–2014 (CMH, 2021).
The next day, we reverted to an online meeting to review Dr. Erik B. Villard’s manuscript covering U.S. Army combat operations in Vietnam from October 1968 through December 1969 (a project initiated by Dale Andrade during his time at CMH). We had four leading scholars of the Vietnam War on this panel. Dr. Pierre Asselin is a history professor at San Diego State University specializing in American foreign relations. His books include A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (University of California Press, 2013), and Vietnam’s American War: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Dr. Robert K. Brigham is a professor of history and international relations at Vassar College. His publications include ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army (University Press of Kansas, 2006) and Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam (Public Affairs, 2018). Dr. Ron Milam is a history professor at Texas Tech University and a Vietnam veteran. He is the author of Not a Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) and is writing another book, currently titled “The Siege of Phu Nhon: Montagnards and Americans as Allies in Battle.” Dr. Edwin E. Moise is a history professor at Clemson University. His publications include The Myths of Tet: The Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War (University Press of Kansas, 2017) and Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (rev. ed., Naval Institute Press, 2019).
Both panels thought the manuscripts were solid contributions in their respective fields, but the reviewers also offered observations and recommendations that will make each project even better. Many of their comments dealt with nuances that will ensure the volumes fully portray events, while others suggested including more Iraqi or Vietnamese perspectives or providing additional focus on certain aspects of the two wars. Neither author will have to do substantial fresh research or make major revisions, so we believe their final drafts will be complete in the second or third quarter of 2024. Dr. Villard’s Vietnam manuscript will go into production immediately, but Dr. Schlosser’s Iraq project will have to sit on the shelf until the source documents are declassified, a process on which we hope to make major progress this year. In the meantime, he will begin work on a campaign monograph on another phase of the war in Iraq, which will prepare him to write the subsequent full volume on that period.